HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL: Waynesboro travels to play Big Spring in season finale

Thursday

Oct 31, 2013 at 11:00 AM

It’s come down to this. The Waynesboro Indians are trying to avoid a winless season tomorrow night in a matchup against a Big Spring team that has lost six in a row.

It’s come down to this.The Waynesboro Indians are trying to avoid a winless season tomorrow night in a matchup against a Big Spring team that has lost six in a row.If both teams are struggling with motivation, they shouldn’t be. As seasons go, the final regular season game sets the tempo for the next season, and there’s the “pride” factor.By now, most players have been at it since last spring — weight room, spring conditioning, 7-on-7 drills, team camps, pre-season practices — and will want to put their best foot forward in their last hurrah, so to speak.For seniors Nathan Toney, Alex Cline, Mike Kassman, Zach Stumbaugh, Christian Bishop, Kenny Baker and Justin Croteau, well, it’s their last hurrah of their high school careers.For the juniors and underclassmen, it’s what they’ll remember in the offseason. They might not remember the first nine games, but they will remember the last game.“Practice has been good so far,” said Waynesboro’s interim head coach Steve Myers. “We need to have (another) good one.”Now would be a good time for the Tribe to show something on both sides of the ball. Of course, that hasn’t been easy since undergoing a mid-season coaching change.“We can’t make any wholesale changes to the way we do things,” said Myers, who will put his name in the pool of applicants for the head coaching position once the season is over.Waynesboro has struggled in the numbers game. They’ve been vastly outscored and has accumulated under 800 yards rushing as a team. Toney has completed just over 30 percent of his passes and the Indians have had a hard time keeping eager defenses out of the backfield on both running and passing plays.Still, as much as this year’s team has endured with off-field distractions and injuries, they show up and play hard. Waynesboro can physically match up with just about any team they play. The trouble comes in executing plays and maintaining discipline on individual position assignments.Kassman has limped off the field on more than one occasion and returned later in games. The senior linebacker has been a mainstay, while Stumbaugh, affectionately called “Beav” by teammates and fans, has been nothing short of a monster on the line of scrimmage on offense and defense. Stumbaugh has been arguably the leader on the team and has drawn serious interest from NCAA Division II schools.Sophomore Matt Peck is the Indians leading receiver and has played quarterback as well. Other non-seniors who have contributed significantly to the team include Patrick Wade, Jake Wertz, Aiden Smith, Ben Gsell, Brady Beckner, Brock Persons, Matt Petrie, Nathan Heibeck, Brad Lark and T.J. Bibbs.“We need to be able to control the line of scrimmage like we did for a decent part of the Greencastle game,” Myers said. “I think we can take advantage of some things both in the middle and on the edges. We just have to execute.”

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